What Good is Faith That Doesn’t Challenge Us?

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The Catholic Church, to which I belong, has just finished a meeting of church leaders in Rome called the Synod on the Family. It started on Oct. 4 and finished on Oct. 25.

It was the second such session, following up on one held last year. Together, the meetings were held to discuss the church’s doctrine and practice regarding marriage and the family, and make a recommendation to the pope. Topics included the church’s prohibition against reception of communion by divorced and remarried people, and “pre-marital unions.”

Why should skeptics searching for God know about this? Because it touches on the subjects of religion and relevance, and illustrates again that the subjects with which religion grapples are not simple, black-and-white issues that can be solved by appeals to liberalism or conservatism, let alone our individual prejudices and preferences.

A Taboo Subject?
I’ve written several blogs about “God and sex,” which may make people uncomfortable. I continue to write about it because I believe it’s a taboo subject that shouldn’t be taboo. I’ve also written about the practice of “hooking up” on college campuses, but we all know that pre-marital sex is not limited to that group or that time in life.

If you watch TV sitcoms, you would conclude that the practice is not only universal but desirable in a free, modern society. And that idea, seems to me, prevails, making it extremely difficult for the church or any other institution to discuss credible alternatives that may be better for individuals and society.

But what good is a church or religion that automatically approves of the whims of contemporary culture? Is it saying anything that society isn’t already saying to itself? Shouldn’t religion make you think critically about everything in life and judge it by the standards of your faith? Should a religion change its beliefs and practice with every generation? How credible would that faith be?

On the other hand, the church, as the famous Protestant theologian Karl Barth said, paraphrasing St. Augustine, should be “reformed but always reforming.”    

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Regarding the synod in Rome, Bill McGarvey writes in a recent issue of America Magazine that “… Pope Francis and the bishops are facing a … lack of connection between rhetoric and reality.”

A Vatican questionnaire – distributed to Catholic dioceses throughout the world to prepare for the synod – reveals “a wide chasm between the church’s sexual teachings and the lived experience of the faithful.”

The article quotes a report prepared for the synod by the German bishops which says, “‘Pre-marital unions’ are not only a relevant pastoral reality, but one which is almost universal. …Between 90 percent and 100 percent of the couples who want to marry in church have already been living together, in many cases for several years.”

“How do we address this pastoral reality?” the German bishops ask. “Do we continue to resign ourselves to perpetual cognitive dissonance? Indeed, is this what it has come to?”

No question, the church is in a bind when it comes to the subject of extra-marital sex. The Christian Bible appears to prohibit it and Christian tradition teaches that it is preserved for marriage between a man and woman. Yet the prohibition is so widely ignored – and sex outside marriage so heavily promoted in the media as the norm – that talking about it from a Christian perspective seems impossible.

I would like the church to do two things: study the issue, which appears to be what it is doing, and be compassionate. Somehow, the church leaders have to figure out how to faithfully teach what Jesus taught while making allowances for the human condition, just as Jesus did.

In his presentation closing the synod, Pope Francis commented on the gospel story of the blind man who sat at the side of the road near Jericho. The man heard a commotion and learning that Jesus was passing, he cried out to him. Those close to Jesus told him to shut up, but he shouted all the louder. Jesus stopped and restored the man’s sight.

Based on that story, the Pope warned against two temptations to which Jesus’ followers are susceptible: a “spirituality of illusion,” and a “scheduled faith.”

Not Being Bothered
The first has us avoiding being bothered with the problems of others. “We can walk through the deserts of humanity without seeing what is really there,” he said. “Instead, we see what we want to see. We are capable of developing views of the world, but we do not accept what the Lord places before our eyes.”

The second temptation has us following our own agenda for the journey, expecting others to “respect our rhythm….”

This temptation makes us like the “many” in the Gospel who “lose patience and rebuke the blind man with the mindset, ‘Whoever bothers us or is not of our stature is excluded.’ Jesus, on the other hand, wants to include, above all those kept on the fringes who are crying out to him.”

Is religion up to the task? I hope so, because that, it seems to me, is its job, its reason for being: making eternal truths applicable to each generation. It’s a challenge, both for religious leaders and for people searching for God. But what good is faith without challenges, to faith and to us?